Games

I finished Outer Wilds a few weeks ago. It was, in my opinion, one of the strongest arguments for treating video games as an art form that I've ever experienced. It's not long - I finished it in about 20 hours - but the narrative and story is so well put together and thought out that it felt a lot longer. I thought it was beautiful and thought provoking.

Video games as a whole aren't for everyone, but if I meet someone and they're interested in games but hasn't played them much, Outer Wilds is on the top of my list of recommends. If you play a lot of video games, this one will amaze you. Don't read anything about it - just grab it when it's on sale and go in blind. I did and it made a big difference.

I just finished Lies of P. If you haven't heard of it, it's a souls-like game that takes story elements from Pinocchio.

I found it a lot more approachable than other souls-like game. It's a lot more linear (but I don't think it suffers from that) and does a better job of introducing you to game mechanics. What also made it more approachable was the parry system felt a little more forgiving and there is always a save point right before a big boss (so even if you're stuck on one, you can keep jumping right back in).

I'd give it a 9/10

Alan Wake 2. What a masterpiece, especially THAT sequence. I absolutely loved this game.

The older I get, the more I start to appreciate studios that take risks and believe in their creative identity. Games like Death Stranding and Alan Wake 2 are perfect examples. They're not everyone's cup of tea, but that's what art is. Someone might hate something that you personally find breathtaking. And vice versa.

I'm also playing Spiderman 2 at the moment, and while it's good and it's very fun, I will not remember this game 1 day after I finish it. Death stranding I finished 3 months ago and I still think about it. I'm extremely excited for DS2 and hopefully Alan Wake 3.

Just completed Sea of Stars 100%. Was a charming game and was a nice break from the game I last finished: Dark Souls

Hotline Miami. Very fun game.

You don't really 'finish' Factorio, but a few months ago I FINALLY launched my first rocket after a thousand hours of play over 6.5 years. I just always had other things I was up to and for a long time launching a rocket mechanically did nothing so I had no incentive. Here I am detailing some of it at that other site

FTL: Faster than Light. I just got it recently, and managed to beat the boss on all ships a few days ago. I'm now exploring the Multiverse mod, I don't think I'll be beating that for a long while.

I just finished Cassette Beasts. Fun pokemon type game with a great soundtrack. Maybe a little short but a fun experience all around.

Last game I finished was Days Gone and it was great. Nice open world zombie shooter in the US state of Oregon. Great map, great characters, decent plot, good action. Very cinematic at times. After the 10+ minutes of cinematic closing credits you can actually start roaming again and there is some more story after the credits.

Pretty much just finishing up Outer Wilds +DLC, I just haven't taken the time to collect some last scraps of information to close out some clues and then finish the game again (after now going through the DLC area). I had actually started this game up about 2 years ago, but got stuck and had some other things come up so that I put it aside. Then I resolved to just watch somebody else's playthrough to spoil the game. I started by watching an astrophysicist playthrough, 'Oliver Plays' on Youtube. I watch as he starts out and relive some of my own experiences of discovering the early game, when suddenly in one of the episodes, I notice something small that brings me back to where I had been at in the game in my own playthrough and the solution instantly became clear. So I jumped back into it like I had never left and now I've pretty much about to finish the game.

I originally went in blind because of everything I kept reading about it being such a great game, blah blah blah. And it lived up to the hype, it was such an awesome experience going in completely blind (I didn't even watch any trailers), but the shitty thing is, I can't really talk about the game that much. So much depends on experiencing it for yourself and discovery, that saying anything about the game potentially spoils somebody else's first experience with it, and I don't want to take that away from anybody. It's just such a beautiful gem of a game, I've not really played anything like that before (though I've read of some others that may be similar).

Just Cause 2. Very fun game that is too big for its own good.

Lately I seem to be collecting unfinished games. The very last game I finished was Cyberpunk 2077 and that was a few months ago, on patch 1.6 I think. I absolutely loved it and I'm definitely planning to buy the dlc and go through it again. I'm a sucker for good story and interactive experiences, couple that with the cyberpunk genre, this was the game of this year for me, no doubt.

I finally played Mass Effect 3, I'd played 1 and 2 but after all the stink about 3 and it being on Origin / EA Play for years I never bothered until a recent $1 sale on a month of that EA subscription, which has ME3 on it.

I spent 90%+ of the game going "Wow this isn't bad at all, I am really impressed! This really is a good game!"

...until I got to the ending sequence, when it felt like the game had taken crazy pills all of a sudden. I understood why everyone was mad about it, and totally agree that it ruined the game. It wasn't that Shepherd died, it wasn't the Red/Blue(/Green) choice they gave you, it was a combination of 3 factors though:

1. Crippling your character and making you limp along, unable to use any of your powers, forced to slog through a bunch of token combat EDIT with only pistol, and all your cosmetic choices were erased as you drag around at half speed through corridors just to get further in the chain of conversations.

2. Except for the pass/fail check on the conversation with the Illusive Man (which is very easy to miss the requirements for without expecting it), none of what you did before entering that final sequence matters, it really was just press a button to receive ending. On that same note, you can have all 3 endings regardless of what you did, spent the entire trilogy making nothing but Renegade choices? Don't worry you can still press the Blue button! Hail Mary deathbed confession!

3. I found the child avatar kind of out of place and a bit weird, yes I know it was a reference to the kid that died, but it was not really immersive and it made this gigantic long conversation that makes up "the last boss" really awkward, especially since half the conversation is just explaining the story for people that weren't paying attention or missed all the side quests.

The Dead Space remake, absolutely loved it! Never played the original or any of the sequels even thoughthey always intrigued me. Gonna play through NG+ immediately.

I guess it was Baldur's Gate 3. Fantastic game. I got partway through a second, heavily modded playthrough—I say second, but I spent a ton of time with it in early access—but I got a bit burned out, and have subsequently been replaying Kingdom Come: Deliverance.

Undertale. Finished the neutral and then the True Pacifist ending. I refuse to go genocidal. I’ve had my happy ending

Deathloop. I kept reading reviews saying it failed to live up to the standards of Dishonored and Prey, but I think those people went into it with the wrong expectations. Dishonored and Prey are amazing immersive sims, yes, but Deathloop was like if you took an indie game that sought to better contextualize trite video game mechanics like endless multiplayer war, respawning, checkpoints, etc. within a reasonable story and then polished it with the skill of industry veterans and a big fuckin budget and everything about it (short of some network latency) worked magically. It’s one of my favorite games now and I strongly recommend it to any fans of well-told stories and FPS games.

If I had any complaint, it’s that the game holds your hand at the end a little too much. If they had given you space to plan your final attack it would’ve felt so much more satisfying. Regardless, great fuckin game.

Super Mario Wonder. It was an enjoyable game, but just too easy, and no reason to keep playing once you finish. There were only maybe 3 stages in the entire game that offer a real challenge. It would be so much more replayable if it just had a time trial mode or something.

I just finished the ff7 remake and the dlc, I've always wanted to get into the final fantasy games but never really had the means to or another game got my attention first. I'm glad I finally gave it a shot, now I know why it's so famous but damn is it long.

Baldur's Gate 3. I loved it as a cRPG fan who grew up on them. It's ambitious, innovative and I'm really happy it's brought the genre to a whole new audience. I hope we see something of a genre revival. But if you've been online at all you've seen all the praise I could give it already anyway, so lets talk about the bad.

It's shockingly buggy and it's weird that it's always just a footnote in the discourse. I'm not sure I've ever finished a game this broken before. I was constantly encountering issues that would cause me to reload a save. There are plenty of posts about the bugs - pretty much every single quest in the game will have dozens of threads about various issues - but when it comes down to reviews people are really forgiving of it in a way I haven't really seen before.

It's also made some fundamentally terrible design decisions that wont be fixed by patches. Long resting to progress the story triggers is particularly awful. It absolute kills the pacing, despite the narrative suggesting a heavy time pressure (that isn't actually there), and encourages you to just nova everything. I found myself just spamming long rests after every narrative beat until the cutscenes stopped triggering just to make sure which was very tedious.

Finish? Hahahaha!

Not the last one I finished, but most worthy of a shout-out.

Inscription

Such a good game. Such a great story. You can tell how much thought and care when into every aspect of it. One of the most complete and immersive experiences I've had in gaming.

Hitman 2. Now working on the third. It's alright, I loved the first one, but it's starting to get a bit boring/repetitive. The new freelancer mode in Hitman 3 seems somewhat interesting, but overall, there's been very little change or improvement between the games. They are fascinating at first, but if you play too long you start noticing all the weird glitches in the simulation that break immersion and can either be exploited or just ruin the experience.

Celeste.

I finished 100% of it recently, it was painful but also really fun, and it made me really proud of achieving it.

starfield. its a lot of fun, but id put it below fallout 4 on my list of bethesda games. could use more fleshed out content, cant wait for the dlc and mods

Superliminal was a trip

The dead space remake. Its just so wonderful since it basically captures everything I love about the first, horror games seem to be one of the few games that just get dramatically better as they get graphically more intense since it helps with the immersion. Now it is a bit questionable since I rather see new games but I won't lie and be excited to see a Dead space 2 remake since holy shit they added flesh stripping and it just fits in so perfectly. Just wish they make better subplots since they had to radically change the narrative and how the other characters interact with you since Issac is now a far more active character (which honestly should have always been the case) since it just makes sense the engineer character comes up with engineering solutions.

To be honest I don't remember the last time I finished a game.

Not counting Rogue-lite games where you replay them over and over like Slay the Spire I think the most "recent" game that I've finished might be Mass Effect 3, which is from 2012...

Oh actually I did finish The Banner Saga 1 a few years ago. It's pretty good except for being somewhat lacking in Quality of Life features. The main selling point are the art style and gameplay-story integration. The tactical combat gameplay is okay but very repetitive, although it got a lot better in BS2 (which I haven't finished) with more varied mission objectives than just "kill every enemy" over and over again.

Skyrim and Xcom 2 are probably in my top 3 or at least top 5 most played games but I have never completed them.

The games I've replayed and finished the most times are Dragon Age Origins and Mass Effect 1&2 (only completed ME3 2 times).

I've replayed DA:O more than 10 times and I would highly recommend it, although I would recommend getting mods and especially get the increased memory patch so it doesn't crash as often.

Chained Echoes, had an absolute blast. I love that health is reset after every fight. The slow lose of life on the way to a boss sucks.

I recently finished Mirror's Edge on PC. I mention that because I've owned the game on Xbox 360 and PS3 and strangely I found the keyboard controls on PC easier to master, hence the completed game. I think it's such a beautiful game that was a little misunderstood upon release.

If you want the long-winded waffly answer, I wrote a review on my blog here.

Stray. It's an awesome game to play casually, lots of fun pluzzes.

Zelda: Phantom Hourglaas

Because I want to try more of Zelda games other than first two I played on n64.

So far I've beat: OoT, MM, Twilight Princess, Wind Waker, Phantom Hourglass.

Just started Skyward Sword. After skyward, I might pick one or two other Zelda games or just start BotW.

Last finished was Black mesa few months ago, and had a blast remembering playing HL1 and 2 in the day. Just to show you don't need the best graphics to enjoy.

Prior to that was Metros Exodus, and it was one of those games you remember well after a year of playing.

In between, I have started RDR2 but can't get to keep it going, I'm not hooked on that one.

Edit: Played Stray with my son on his ps5 and was really great! Had me wanting more.

Finished w4k Mechanicus a few months back. I tried to get into Baldurs Gate 3 mainly due to all the great reviews, but it didn't really fit with me. Other than that I mostly played Crusader Kings 3, Civ6 and Risk of Rain 2, all three being games you don't really finish.

Sea of Stars. I liked it but it felt kind of thin. I wish they had had a bigger budget. It really feels like there should have been a third chapter and it feels like things are left hanging. I didn't get the super true final ending but still felt like there should have been more depth in general. It's a beautiful game with a surprisingly good and strong narrative. The game play was solid but didn't really grow much over the course of the game.

Over Halloween weekend, I beat the original Alan Wake for the first time. It was a blast. I got really engaged in the story and couldn't put it down. I was shocked at how well it held up. The graphics were a tad dated, but they were still pretty good and everything else about the game felt like it could have come out last year. I think I bought the game in like 2014, so finally playing it was a real victory for my backlog. lol

Persona 5 Royal.

It was a masterpiece.

Baldur's Gate 3.

Loved it. Immediately started my second play through. Loved it, immediately started my third playthrough.

The last game I finished was Stray. ❤️

Shadow Gambit: The Cursed Crew. From the little-known "stealth tactics" micro-genre. It really felt like the culmination of what the studio learned from their previous few games. It took some familiar abilities from all the way back to the original Desperados 20 years ago, then added several brand new ones that almost feel OP and make each character unique. Plus if you have a checklist-oriented brain, there are so many optional objectives encouraging you to replay missions in different ways.

I understand some fans weren't huge on the reuse of levels, but the missions either use different parts of them or have you approach familiar guard setups from completely different directions, keeping them feeling fresh (at least to me).

It's a real shame developer Mimimi is closing down, though I'm glad they get to wind down gradually and on their own terms. I'm so used to companies trying a new project, running out of money, and closing suddenly.

I last finished Lies of P. It was the most fun I've had with a soulslike in a long time. I find the environments beautiful and amazingly detailed. The combat felt fluid and fun. The only part it seemed to disappoint a bit was the story, it was rather lackluster. I would still very much recommend it for any fan of the genre however.

I bought and finished the Mafia Trilogy a month ago. Forgot how good it was. I have since been playing Starfield so nothing else complete for a while I would think.

I got to the last boss in Eldenring and thought wow that's really shit. To be fair it was a great way to end a very over hyped game.

Super Metroid, amazing level and sound design, perfect progression of difficulty.

Alan Wake 1 and The American Nightmare follow-up. I'm also playing through control again now.

I wanna catch up before going into AW2, but I heard American Nightmare isn't cannon anymore so that may have been a bit of a waste of time.

Tomb Raider 2013. Love that game. It's a mystery to me how they were able to croft (allow me this pun!) such a good story for that game but not able to repeat it in the later games. Even though their graphics is undoubtedly better, they feel like blant, nonsensical, un-mysterious clones